Taking Sides - HD-DVD or Blu-Ray?

Can't believe it's been 10 years since this format war. Difference between DVD and Blu-Ray/HD-DVD was so minor compared to VHS vs. DVD. HDTV's and players/Xboxes/Playstations were super expensive so until very recently, I'd never had a decent sized HDTV and a Blu-Ray player. Sorta going nuts with the compulsive buying. Fuck Barnes & Noble and their amazing 50% off Criterion sale.

My Panasonic bluray player started getting jittery when playing discs after just three weeks. Does it need an update? Surely a bluray player shouldn't need updates just to play discs?

I don't know the specifics, but I believe part of the blu-ray system runs on Java, and I remember instances where players had to be firmware updated to play certain discs (Avatar, among others)

but the issue you're describing sounds more like perhaps a faulty unit that should be returned for repair/switch?